


Something to Dream Of

by everythingsshiny



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alcoholism, Depression, M/M, Reincarnation AU, barely explained supernatural phenomena, really obvious metaphors
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-06-01
Updated: 2014-06-25
Packaged: 2018-01-27 21:03:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 19,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1722449
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/everythingsshiny/pseuds/everythingsshiny
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Grant is a college student just going through the motions of a lackluster life. But when he falls asleep at night, he lives out another life in a French cafe buzzing with revolution.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this about a year ago and posted it on tumblr, but I was too nervous to post it here (where I know a lot more people will see it).
> 
> I'm still nervous so be nice.
> 
> I chose to modernize names for the part set in the modern world and I hope that doesn't make things too confusing.

After just two weeks of life at a university, Grant felt out of place. Which was unsurprising, because he had not felt in place for the majority of his life.

He had tried to fit in. Well, he had tried a little. He had looked at potential clubs to become involved in, but nothing interested him. He had no interest in any cause that the activist clubs were purporting; he didn’t see the point of community service; he didn’t care about any athletics. The only thing he really did enjoy was art. So, he went to the first meeting of the art club and, after one hour surrounded by the vegans, poets and political pot-smokers that populated his school’s art club, he knew he couldn’t do it.

Well, perhaps that was not the only thing he enjoyed. He also greatly enjoyed alcohol. The only real initiative he took in his first week at university was obtaining a fake id. From then on, he kept the refrigerator in his dorm room well stocked with a variety of alcohol. After the first few days of classes, upon the realization that he hated everyone and everything at the pretentious university he found himself at, he retreated into his dorm room and spent his time either drunkenly painting or drunkenly sleeping.

Once, in one of the many college informational sessions Grant’s dad had dragged him to (fuck if he remembered what school it was for), the speaker had stood up in front of the wide-eyed high school seniors and asked, “If you could do anything at all, and time or money wasn’t a factor, what would you like to do? Find that dream and follow it.”

Grant had sat in the audience and thought carefully. What did he want to do? What, at his heart, was he most passionate about?

He came up empty.

Grant wasn’t passionate about anything. He hadn’t been for years, and he didn’t even know what had stopped him. He loved art, sure, but he didn’t even find that a passion. Just an escape.

If anything, Grant was passionate about stopping. Giving up, getting drunk, letting life pass him by. If nothing held him back, that’s what he would like to do.

Unfortunately, his parents held him back. Or pushed him forward. Or, really, just shoved him around. He was going to college. And he was not going to major in art, because that didn’t make a living. And he was going to clean up and cut his hair and start going to class because God help them, they were not having a failure as a son.

After two semesters of college, it appeared that they were having a failure as a son after all. He had found it impossible to get involved or dedicate himself to his classes—which were all required general education courses, since he could not for the life of him decide on a major—and was dangerously close to academic probation. His parents were at their wits end; no one else noticed he was there.

Well, fuck that, Grant thought as he sat on the steps outside his dorm and watched students pass by. He was pretty sure there was a class he was supposed to be at right now, but he couldn’t quite remember and couldn’t bring himself to care. He took a big swig out of a bottle and people looked disapprovingly at him from across the quad. _Fuck them,_ he thought again.

The sun was bright, and students were starting to throw Frisbees and spread out on the grass with their homework, drawn to the sun by some inexplicable force. It was one of the first real days of spring, and the very weather seemed to make everyone happy. Grant wondered what that felt like as he finished off his drink and started stumbling up the stairs.

His room was on the second floor. He passed his roommate on his way up, who looked at the ground and refused to say a word to him. The two of them had a relationship of mutual hatred which, Grant thought, worked quite well as they both agreed to pretend the other didn’t exist.

Once in his room, Grant dropped the bottle on the floor and collapsed into his unmade bed. Now seemed like a great time to sleep and pass again into oblivion.

Sleep certainly came, enveloping Grant within minutes. Oblivion, not so much.

*****

Grant saw a dark street and heard voices shouting and laughing. He blinked a couple times and looked around. The buildings around him looked old-fashioned, and there was a strange smell in the air that made him think of . . . well, it smelled pretty strongly like shit, actually. A horse snorted across the street and Grant realized why. He took a 360 turn, noticing the cobblestones on the street, the run-down appearance of the buildings around him, the lanterns hanging everywhere in the place of street lamps.

Where was he? It looked like he was in the past, somehow. Grant shook his head and tried to remember how he got here. He had been drinking outside, and then he went inside . . .

oh. He was asleep. This was a dream.

Why was he dreaming about a city from two hundred years ago?

A door in front of him opened. Light and laughter poured out together, and a young man stepped to the doorway and looked out. His eyes met Grant’s. “Grantaire, there you are!” he said.

Speechless, Grant pointed at himself questioningly. “Yes, you! No, the other Grantaire.” He had light red hair and wore a ridiculous outfit complete with a cravat that cemented the fact that Grant had traveled back in time. He couldn’t see his face too well in the dark, but this man appeared to be college-aged as well. “It’s been a few hours, so we thought you might have passed out drunk somewhere. I was just going to check for you.”

“Uh . . .”

“Are you coming in?”

Grant tried to read the sign outside the door, but it was much too dark. As he moved closer, though, he could hear rumbling voices, laughter and—yes, there it was—the clink of glasses. It was a bar. Of course he was coming in.

Grant followed this young man in to a crowded room lit by lanterns and candles. The smell of wine was in the air, and men crowded around tables while a woman darted around delivering bottles. He was asleep and dreaming about alcohol. He could now do two of his favorite things at once.

The young man led him through this main room and into a back room. “I found him,” he announced loudly. Now that he was in the light, Grant could see that this young man was close to his age, with a young-looking face and an easy smile. Grant could also see that his bright yellow cravat definitely did not match his green jacket. Grant usually tried to actively dislike happy things, but he liked him.

A knot of men around the same age were crowded together in this room. They were all twenty-somethings talking animatedly with each other. A couple of them looked up when Grant was announced, and one commented, “Glad to see you’re not passed out somewhere.”

Even in his dreams he was a loser.

But now he was sitting down next to the guy who had come to get him, and a green bottle was placed in front of him, which he grabbed greedily and drank deeply. It was quite good, surprisingly good for such a simple place. Content to drink and see how this dream would play out, Grant leaned back and listened to the conversation around him. People threw out terms and names that Grant vaguely recognized—Locke, representation, Republic, Rousseau. He remembered these words from high school civics, and he realized they were all talking politics.  

Grant wondered why he was dreaming about political discussions, when in reality he couldn’t care less about politics. It didn’t anger him quite as much as it usually did, though. It was all in his head, and he had a bottle of wine in his hand. He continued to drink as those around him continued to talk.

“You all get so caught up in your theories and your politics, you fail to see what’s right in front of you. The people need food. We need to focus on what manner of government will get them what they need, not what manner of government holds up to your ideals the best.”

“The whole purpose of these ideals is to the put them into the practice of getting food to people. If we go into a revolution without a clear plan of how to organize afterwards, we’ll just end up with another Napoleon after the course of a few years.”

“I’m not saying--”

But what he wasn’t saying was quickly cut off by someone shouting, “Friends, may I have your attention. Les Amis de l’ABC, I call this meeting to order.”

The gaggle of college students quieted down faster than he would ever expect such an unruly group to. Grant looked up from his bottle to find the owner of that authoritative voice.

That was when his heart stopped. Because the owner of that voice was the most beautiful man he had ever seen.

Grant was gay. But he tried to suppress it, he tried to never look too long or hard at an attractive man. The shit storm it would cause in his family wasn’t worth it. Besides, he knew he could never actually get a boyfriend, so there really was no point in looking.

But when he looked up at this man, all his inhibitions melted away and all he wanted was to hold him, to be kissed by him and run his hands through his curls and—

 _Woah, stop,_ he tried to tell himself. _He’s a figment of your imagination_.

Still, Grant couldn’t look away from him. This man jumped up onto a chair and started speaking with a passion that was entrancing. The intenseness of this guy’s gaze caught and captured the gaze of everyone else in the café. Grant felt drawn to him, as though there was something magnetic in this guy, and it wasn’t just that he was physically attractive—though that was certainly the case. He had the most incredible blonde curls that blazed like the sun when the lantern light hit them. His eyes were deep blue and intense, and his body . . . well, for a solid five minutes Grant couldn’t tear his eyes away from his butt.

But that wasn’t all. There was something about this guy. Something that marked him as starkly different from everyone else he had ever met. Grant leaned forward as the speaker’s eyes turned to meet his—

He woke up.

Grant blinked. Rubbed his eyes. He didn’t remember where he was and wondered what had happened to the speaker before the reality of his college dorm returned to him.

He rolled over the checked the time on the red digital letters of the clock next to his bed. He had been asleep for just a couple hours. It was still the middle of the day and, if he felt like it, he could make his last class.

Grant closed his eyes and tried to remember the face he had seen in his dreams. Golden hair, blue eyes, intense gaze. He had been wearing a red jacket. Yes, there was his sex god. Grant kept his eyes closed to see this man more clearly, desperately wishing to go back to sleep.


	2. Chapter 2

Grant could not fall back asleep no matter how hard he tried to grasp that dream again. With nothing better to do, he resigned himself to getting up and going to class. Halfway there, he lost all motivation and sat down on a grassy lawn instead. Even more people than before were enjoying the nice weather now. Done with classes for the day, they wandered outside entranced by the sun. The sun reminded Grant of the man from his dream, and the way the light shone in his hair . . .

He took sketchpad out of his bag and flipped to a clean page. He never exactly decided to draw the dream man, but at the same time he never had any doubt what would emerge from his pen.

The sun was just starting to set when Grant stopped drawing, satisfied that he had finished. He looked it over. It was pretty good, actually. And it was very lifelike for someone who didn’t exist in real life.         

Grant sighed and closed the sketchbook. If only someone like that did exist in real life . . . Though, if he were to be honest with himself, Grant had never approached a guy in his life and would have no idea where to start. He’d probably say something stupid and spend the rest of his life trying to avoid him.

It was getting late in the day, but there were still several hours before he could justify going to sleep again. Grant spent the rest of the evening going through the motions and wasting time. He got some dinner alone. Watched TV. Wasted time on the Internet. Tried to do homework. Had a few drinks. Moved one of his roommate’s textbooks while he was in the bathroom and watched him panic when he couldn’t find it. At midnight, he went to finally bed thankful that another empty day had come to an end.

*****

He fell asleep and found himself in the same nineteenth-century street as before. So, this was a recurring dream. Interesting.

Soon, the young man would open the door of the wine shop. Laughter and light would pour out onto the street. He would be called in, and his boy would be there . . .

He waited. The door didn’t open. After a while he grew impatient and approached the café. After all, no one could get angry at him in his own dream. He could enter wherever he wanted. Grant was a little surprised at how easy it was to think lucidly in this dream. It was kind of a nice change from the typical, I’m-in-my-underwear-and-I-don’t-know-why-and-can’t-do-anything-about-it dream.

He opened the door. It was a similar scene as before. People scattered around the wine shop, and through a doorway across the main room he could see the back room filled with the political college boys. The golden-haired boy sat at a table with some people he recognized from the last dream. Even in casual conversation, this guy looked intense, serious and beautiful.

And there was an empty seat next to him.

_It’s just a dream. I can kiss him. It’s just a dream._ And what was the point of dreaming about hot guys if there was no kissing?

Grant approached the table as if in a trance. If this was just a dream, why was he so nervous? _Man up,_ he told himself. _Dream ass might be the only ass you’ll ever get._

Someone bumped into him in the crowded room, and wine spilled out of a bottle and trickled down his arm. Grant felt it splash over him and the smelled sharp, sweet scent of--         

Wait. You can’t smell in dreams. Nor can you feel.

“Sorry, monsieur,” someone drunkenly mumbled next to him. Grant ignored him. He lifted up the hand that had been spilled on and licked a drop of wine off it as an experiment. Did wine taste that strong in a dream?

But if this wasn’t a dream, what else could it possibly be?

“Good evening, Grantaire.” It was the boy who had come for him the last time. He came up from behind Grant and clasped him on the shoulder. “How are you?”

“Um what uh . . . fine,” he said as this boy passed by Grant to take the empty seat next to the blonde boy.

Unsure of what else to do, he sat down on a seat across the table from them. A barmaid walked by, and he grabbed a wine bottle from her. When he tasted it, he noticed how strong and sweet it tasted. It didn’t feel like a dream. Every sensation was strong and vivid. Grant could feel the chair underneath him, he could smell the alcoholic scent of the café and the musty scent of a few dozen men (who probably hadn’t showered that day, it was the 1800s after all), and lying underneath it was the general shitty smell of the entire city. Dream smells didn’t exist. And they certainly weren’t this layered. Grant took a very long sip out of his bottle to calm himself down.

The blonde boy was talking to the people gathered around the table. “When the people are represented proportionately in the government--”

“Enjolras, no political speeches until the meeting officially starts,” one of the boys demanded. “We agreed to this rule.”

“I didn’t agree to this rule,” the boy—Enjolras? What kind of name was that?—grumbled.

“Enjolras’s brain is nothing but political discourse,” one of the other boys joked. “There’s no room for anything else.”

“Is that why he’s forgotten how to have fun?” a third asked.

“Must be.”

“Explains the lack of knowledge about women too.”

“Most certainly.”

“You’re all hilarious,” Enjolras spat sarcastically. But Grant could detect a faint smile at the corners of Enjolras’s lips that he was trying to keep down. Grant started smiling too, but he quickly suppressed that smile so Enjolras wouldn’t think he was laughing at him. He didn’t want to give him a bad first impression—if this even was a first impression, since most of these guys seemed to act as if they knew him. And, if you could give bad impressions in dreams. If this even was a dream.

All these questions were rising in the back of Grant’s mind, demanding that he answer them. There was too much anxiety behind those thoughts, too much confusion. Grant took another calming sip of wine and sat back. He tried to focus on the people around him. There was nothing to do now and no way to get out of it until he woke up, so he might as well treat it as a very lucid dream. And it if this was a lucid dream, he wanted to drink his wine and watch how things unfolded.  

Mostly, he watched Enjolras. He watched as Enjolras good naturedly fought back against his friends’ banter and denied their attempts to get him to drink. How uptight could this guy be, Grant wondered, who couldn’t even have one drink? Anyone else obsessed with politics and unwilling to drink would have been immediately dismissed by Grant. Perhaps it was because he was beautiful, or perhaps it was because this was just a dream (it was definitely a dream, no doubt about that, he tried to convince himself), but Grant found himself entranced by Enjolras instead. Everything from the slightest movement of his hands or face to the way he spoke, what words he accented, the way his mouth furrowed into a frown when he was serious and relaxed into a slight smile when his friends prodded him in just the right way. A couple times throughout the night his friends got Enjolras to grin, and it was like opening curtains and watching sunlight burst into a room with the way it lit up his face and brightened his eyes and oh god Grant had never even had a crush like this before and he wasn’t even real.

He watched the other boys too and learned their names and personalities. The guy who had greeted him last time was named Jehan, and he kind of reminded Grant of a puppy with his mixture of energy and friendliness. Jehan never joined in on the prodding at Enjolras, but he laughed uproariously with the rest and found a way to insert a kind word to everyone throughout the night. He bounced around the room, talking to everyone.

Courfeyrac was the one who had initially stopped Enjolras from speaking politics, a guy with mussed dark hair and a sweet round face that quickly became mischievous when he grinned at his friends. His partner in crime was Combeferre, a tall blonde with glasses and a calm demeanor. He spent most of the time listening with a small, amused smile, but when he spoke he could throw Enjolras off his guard perfectly. He and Courfeyrac played off of each other, and Grant had the sense that the two of them had had a lot of practice with this.

These were the main players, but there were others—Marius, a willowy guy who tried so hard to fit in but always seemed to be a bit clueless. Joly, who never stopped smiling, though he occasionally glanced around or shifted away from people and seemed nervous about something. Bahorel, one of the loudest, wittiest and drunkest participants.

The playful banter continued until a set time of the night when, as if at a signal that no one else could see, Enjolras climbed onto a chair and began to speak. Just as had happened the night before, Enjolras captivated the entire room with his passion. Everyone who had been mercilessly torturing him sat down and listened attentively. Grant tried to pinpoint what it was about him that caused this kind of loyalty, but he kept getting distracted by the curve of his throat, the exact color of his eyes and--

Grant woke up. “Fuck,” he muttered, and he turned over. He thought back over his dream—which had to be a dream, because he was awake now. He laughed when he remembered how he worried that it was real.

But damn, he would prefer if it was real . . . those guys were all hilarious. It had been years since he enjoyed the company of any real people, but he definitely enjoyed theirs. And, of course, there was the dream guy.

Grant shook his head. He tried to banish the image of Enjolras from his mind, but it refused to leave. Where had that image come from, he wondered? Did his brain just create his perfect man?

The real world seemed so much less interesting, so much more gray and dull. That was saying something, since it already felt pretty gray and dull most of the time. He tried to go back to sleep, but the realization that it was almost finals week, and he had classes he had barely attended all semester, fought to keep him awake. His roommate was up and moving around, and he had turned on the light. With a groan, Grant stumbled out of bed, reaching for a half empty bottle as he did so.

*****

He floated through the day the way he did most other days. If truth be told, he didn’t really remember what he did that day. He passed through it all in a drunken haze. He remembered professors talking to him, and an email from the school telling him he was in danger of failing. He painted a little—he painted the café from his dreams and then hid it away so he wouldn’t have to explain his recurring and vivid dream to anyone. He sketched Enjolras again and again, hiding the sketchbook each time he finished.

When he went back to sleep, he was relieved to find himself back at the café. He didn’t wait at all this time, but walked right in. Enjolras was already engaged in discussion with someone else. Grant sat down, he bought a drink, he greeted Courfeyrac and Combeferre and Jehan by name. He answered to the name Grantaire, even though he couldn’t really figure out why they were calling him that. And he drank, and he watched Enjolras, and he was happier than he had been all day.

 


	3. Chapter 3

Somehow, Grant stumbled through finals week and only failed one class. He often had to work through the night to catch up on everything, and the day, when he couldn’t return to the laughter of the café or watch his beautiful Enjolras filled with passion were the hardest to get through. But when he did sleep, invariably, he dreamt of the Café Musain and the revolutionaries in its back room. He even started to enjoy listening to their political talk, though their belief in a better future struck him as ridiculously ignorant.

Though long and exhausting, finals week passed in a haze and ended before he knew it was ending. Grant returned to his parent’s house, where he hadn’t been since Christmas. He tried to muster up some feeling of happiness at being home, or at least at leaving school, but he couldn’t. His father grunted at him. His step-mother gave him fifty dollars as a stand-in for affection. As soon as he could, Grant went to bed early. He had grand plans to sleep through the entirety of summer.

*****

“But the twentieth century will be better,” Enjolras was saying. Grant perked up. Normally, he was content to just listen to Enjolras’s voice without taking in much his meaning. He was curious, though, what this nineteenth century boy wanted to say about the twentieth.

“The nineteenth century is full of pains, injustices and sufferings. And it will have to suffer more on the path to equality. Society’s ills will not be fixed in a night. But I believe—I _know_ —that the twentieth century will benefit for it. That the future will be a time of more peace and fewer injustices. If we continue to fight for equality and liberty, we will eventually reach a time when all people live in peaceful coexistence.”

Grant thought of the twentieth-century history he knew and, before he could stop himself, his laughter rang out throughout the café.

Everyone’s eyes turned to fix on him. Grant stopped laughing abruptly, his amusement replaced by a desire to shrink until his disappeared altogether. He took a drink from his wine bottle to calm himself. No one looked away. He kept drinking. Perhaps they’d just think he was ridiculously drunk and leave him alone.

Instead, Enjolras glared at him from across the room. “What’s so funny?” he demanded.

“Uhhhh . . .” Grant said with the bottle still half in his mouth. A couple of the guys snickered. Enjolras’s frown deepened. This was the first time the force of those intense blue eyes had been focused on him alone, and it was at that moment that Grant knew for certain that this was not a dream. There was no way a dream could make his insides turn to liquid like that. He wanted to disappear. He wanted to beg Enjolras to forgive him. A small, ridiculous part of him wanted Enjolras to push him down and fuck him then and there. No way could a dream make him squirm this hard.

But Grant was determined not to show how much he was bothered, so he lifted the bottle away from him, shrugged his shoulders and said, “I’m just really happy,” purposely slurring his speech to make himself sound more drunk than he was. This got a laugh from most of the guys, but Enjolras did not relax.

“I want to know what you find amusing, Grantaire.”

The sternness in his voice was too much for Grant to handle. Aimed at anyone else, Grant probably would have found it admirably sexy. As it was, it was just terrifying.

“I . . .” Grant had the sense that covering this interruption with a joke wouldn’t work. He had seen in the past couple weeks that Enjolras was not the type of person easily calmed down by humor. “Look,” he said reluctantly. “After a couple millennia of injustice, it’s not going to be changed in a century. People don’t get better in the twentieth century. They’re the same, shitty, selfish human beings that we have today and always have had.”

He skimmed the café and found everyone’s faces holding mingled expressions of surprise, confusion, disappointment or awe at his bold argument. Grant wanted to go around and shake every one of them out of their stupid blind hope. _The world doesn’t change_ , he wanted to scream at them. _The twentieth century does not get better. You will not change history._

He loved being with these people, he loved listening to them and laughing with them. But sometimes, when he became fully convinced that they were real, he worried about them. They all seemed so naïve. There was just no way that the things they hoped for could ever be accomplished.

“But the forces of progress are nevertheless working,” Enjolras argued. “The world is progressing day by day, and the social change that comes from this progress will lead to better conditions in the future that will diminish the opportunities for injustice. Of course there will still be selfish people, but the progress of society will prevent them from being as powerful.”

“Progress?” Grant asked. “Is progress your revolution reverting back to another monarchy?”

Enjolras glared. Next to him, Courfeyrac whispered, “Ohhhhh ouch.”

“Progress never goes forward smoothly,” Enjolras said, practically snarling.

“Seems to me that it doesn’t go forward at all,” Grant replied.

“Doesn’t go forward at all? Would you rather revert to a hundred years ago and live under absolute monarchs? Would you rather live in a world without enlightened philosophy or modern technology?”

Grant did a good job not laughing at the phrase “modern technology.” Instead he just replied, “Sure. It sounds quaint.”

A laugh rippled around the café, and Enjolras took that opportunity to continue speaking, this time going off on something about technology and progress. Grant almost spoke up again. He could tell Enjolras all about progress. Modern factories represented the future, all right—a future of dehumanizing, cheap labor. Technology had led to some other great things including, but not limited to, the destruction of the environment and the nuclear bomb.

He didn’t speak again, though. For one thing, it would be really difficult to explain to everyone how he knew the future. But something else stopped his tongue. He watched Enjolras speak and was able to pinpoint, finally, part of what made him so engaging. Hope. Enjolras was filled with and radiated hope. This hope, this belief in the potential of mankind and the possibility of change, was so pure that it helped to make Enjolras beautiful.

Grant hadn’t recognized it, he realized, because it had been so long since he felt hope himself.

It was magnetic, though. He realized that the hope Enjolras exhibited was somewhat contagious among Les Amis de l’ABC. Those closest to him were smiling. People nodded, or clapped, or spoke out in agreement. Grant was surrounded by a room full of hopeful people, and it made him sad.

It made him sad to see all these people that, he knew, would ultimately be disappointed. And it made him even sadder to realize that he could never feel as beautifully hopeful as they did.

*****

The meeting ended late at night, and everyone dispersed slowly, bidding goodnight to their friends before disappearing into the dark streets of old Paris. Grant had not yet slept long enough to see the end of the meeting, and he wasn’t quite sure what to do now.

“I’ll walk with you back to your rooms,” Jehan said cheerfully from his side. Okay, apparently he had rooms, and Jehan knew where they were. Thank goodness.

“That’d be great,” Grant said. “I mean, you don’t have to if it’s out of your way.”

Jehan raised his eyebrows. “But it’s on the way, and I walk there with you every night.”

“Right.”

“Are you—goodnight dear! See you tomorrow evening!—are you alright, Grantaire?”

“Yeah. I just had a . . . um . . .”

“Are you drunk?” Jehan asked with concern.

“No more than usual,” Grant answered simply as they started to leave the café.

“Night Enj!” Jehan said. Grant looked up to see Enjolras just a few feet away from him. He panicked. The last thing he wanted was an interaction with Enjolras after tonight’s argument.

Enjolras looked up and smiled. “Goodnight, Jehan. Grantaire,” he added, giving Grant a nod.

“Goodnight,” Grant said. “Um . . .” He felt that he needed to make some sort of apology for his disruption earlier, and also that doing so would be the most uncomfortable thing he could do. “I, uh.” Grant had gone so long without caring what anyone else thought of him that he didn’t know what to do with this feeling of discomfort. He felt at once extremely small and extremely conspicuous. “I’m sorry about what I said earlier tonight. If it was, uh, disrespectful or disruptive or . . . yeah.”

Enjolras shrugged. “I’m not a dictator. I’m not going to tell you that you can’t speak.”

“Really?”

“Of course. Besides, a little dissention is important for an educated conversation.”

“Oh. Um, good.” Grant felt a huge relief. People generally lived in a constant state of anger with him, and he hadn’t really expected anything else from Enjolras. Yet here was Enjolras, looking at him with those beautiful eyes that made him think of the sky ( _damn, that’s cheesy_ , he thought) and telling him that he was okay. The combination of knowledge that he was accepted and fear that it would end quickly somehow combined to bring a drunken, shit-eating grin to his face. “Cuz there’s plenty more where that came from,” he announced cheerfully. As he said this, he swung his arm around Jehan’s back and cheerfully pulled him along as he marched out of the café.

The night air was cool and fresh after the stuffy back roo. Grant looked up at the stars and breathed deep in mingled satisfaction and fear.

“Grantaire, are you ok?” Jehan asked again. He gently pulled Grant’s arm off of his back.

“I’m great! Let’s go home.” Grant started off down the street.

“It’s that way,” Jehan said, pointing in the opposite direction.

Grant pivoted on one foot to spin around. “Just kidding,” he said.

Jehan watched him carefully, as if ready to jump forward if Grant should collapse, but he didn’t say anything else.

They passed out of the lights of the Musain and entered into a dark, sleeping street. Lamps at regular intervals—actual fire lamps, they were in the age even before gas lamps—gave faint glows to otherwise black city. Grant looked up at the lamps as they walked past. In his strange, giddy state the intermittent dots of light made him think of his dreams (he still thought of them as such, even though he was firmly convinced that they were somehow real), bright and vivid and from another era. If the lamps were his dreams then that made the dark patches in between his real life. They passed by a lamp that had somehow gone out, and Grant couldn’t stop staring at it.

“The stars are so beautiful tonight,” Jehan commented, mistaking what Grant was looking up at.

“Yeah.” Grant looked up at the sky. Stars in the city. There was something he didn’t get in his world. He stopped walking as he looked at them. Suddenly, all the giddiness he had felt dissipated. No other feeling took its place. He simply felt empty.

“Grantaire?” Jehan whispered.

“They’re so far away,” he said under his breath. He barely knew what he was saying.

“Let’s get you home.” Jehan wrapped his arm around Grant’s back, supporting him under the armpits to keep him steady. Grant passively let Jehan guide him into a run-down building on the left of the street. Together, they climbed the stairs to the top floor. Jehan opened the door to reveal a small garret room furnished with nothing but an unmade bed and a rickety table. Clothes, empty bottles and half-finished canvases littered the floor.

Jehan went so far as to sit Grant down on the bed. “Are you going to be ok?” he asked.

Grant looked up into Jehan’s delicate face and his earnest eyes. The earnest eyes were worried tonight. Grant had trouble connecting the idea that the worry was about him.

“You’re really nice,” he said, suddenly overwhelmed. “You’re really nice.”

Jehan gave him a quick peck on the cheek. “Goodnight, Grantaire,” he said.

Jehan closed the door after him. The lamplight that had illuminated the stairs was shut out. All that Grant had left was the faint starlight that barely shaped the outline of his dirty window.

He crossed the room to the window and looked out. The rooftops of 1800s Paris, running in a jagged line across the sky, stretched on forever. Stars illuminated the sky above them. He wanted to reach out and grab the stars, pluck the little suns from out of the sky and hold them to his heart. “I want it to be real,” he whispered, praying to no one. “I want it to be real. I want it to be real. I want it to be--”

Grant woke up.

“—real.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy barricade day! I guess this is my barricade day contribution?

With a gasp Grant took in his bedroom and remembered where he was. Bare walls, clothes and bottles in heaps on the floor, and a messy desk in the corner. Nineteenth century Paris had disappeared, and his bedroom at home had replaced it. Grant clenched his sheets to keep himself from trembling too much.

His eyes darted around the room. The shades were drawn, but he could tell from the light that peeked in around them that it was late in the morning. These slivers of sun gave his room light enough to see by but left it gray and colorless.

He rolled out of bed. Standing on the carpet, he dug his toes into the worn fibers and breathed deeply. He needed reassurance that the world around him was real. He needed to feel grounded. He didn’t.

Grant stumbled over to his desk and opened his laptop. As soon as it had finished booting up he typed in an Internet search. “Recurring vivid dreams.” Dream interpretation websites, Wikipedia articles and ghost blogs all popped up. He opened nearly every page, and within a couple minutes he was browsing between a dozen different tabs. He pulled a beer out of a mini fridge that he kept under his desk. This was going to be a lot of work, and he wasn’t about to do it sober.

There was a knock on his door. Grant froze.

“Do you any idea what time it is?” The voice of his father pierced through his closed door and hit him like a slap.

Grant looked at the clock in the corner of his computer screen. “Twelve-thirteen,” Grant answered.

“You’ve slept away half the day. What are you even doing in there?”

“Masturbating,” Grant replied matter-of-factly.

“You’re disgusting.”

Grant listened to his father’s footsteps disappear down the hall. Once certain that he had been left alone, Grant raised his beer can towards the door in a mock toast. “Fuck you too,” he said. Taking a long swig of his drink, he turned back to the computer.

The rest of the day was passed in dream research, and Grant left his room only to eat and pee. When the strain of reading on the screen became too much, or when he became too frustrated at the work, he would get up and sketch. He would have preferred to paint, but his painting supplies were still packed away in a bin downstairs, and he was not in the mood to leave his room to get them. He had sketchpads scattered around his room, though, and he drew anything and everything he could think of—and most of the time, all he could think of was Enjolras.

After hours and hours of researching, Grant came up with exactly nothing. Or, more accurately, he had found too many answers and all of them contradicted. One site said that recurring dreams were nothing more than problems the subconscious was working through; another said he was reliving a past life; another said he was communicating with dead spirits. When the sun began setting, Grant closed his laptop in frustration.

He lay on his bed with a bottle by his right hand and a bag of chips by his left. Alternating between the two, he thought through all the plausible answers he had come up with in the Internet search, trying to organize and understand them. Was he going crazy? Was he experiencing something mystical?

Was Enjolras real?

His brain kept going back to Enjolras. For some reason, the prospect of going insane concerned him much less than the prospect of losing Enjolras. Real or not, Enjolras occupied his mind now. Grant saw him when he closed his eyes and thought of him when he was trying to think of something else. He replayed their one brief conversation over and over in his head, wondering what Enjolras thought of him now.

Grant sat up suddenly, remembering what he had said to Enjolras last night. “There’s more where that came from,” he had told him, practically promising more arguments. Enjolras had said he didn’t mind Grant’s dissension, that someone who could debate with him kept him sharp.

Grant slid back into his computer chair and opened up his laptop. He wasn’t quite sure where to start, so he typed in to the Google search _French republican thinkers._ The search led him to some of the names he had heard in the Musain: Rousseau, Voltaire, Montesquie. After all, he couldn’t help Enjolras with an educated debate unless he was educated himself.

*****

The questions Grant struggled with—were the dreams real? What would happen if they ended? What did it mean that he was having these dreams? What did Enjolras really think of him, and how long until he kicked him out?—these never lessened as the summer went on. They tortured Grant in the back of his mind, gnawing at him persistently so that the minute Grant thought about one of them, all the others came tumbling into his mind. Each question came with its own well of crippling anxiety that Grant couldn’t diminish.

So Grant just didn’t think of any of them.

This was easiest to accomplish at night. At night the Musain was full of distractions. Enjolras alone was enough to shut out thoughts of anything else. On top of that, the chatter of the Amis, the bright, loud atmosphere and the political fervor all made it easy to pretend that this was his real life, and his only life, and that everything was going well.

The days were much more difficult.

During the day, he had nothing to do. If he left his room, his parents would begin insulting him, asking him what he did all day, pressuring him to get a job, etc. If he didn’t leave his room, he was alone with his thoughts. So Grant threw himself into research to avoid thinking. He read every Internet article he could on the French Enlightenment. He even found translations of the original writings and, though they were dense and wordy and a chore to read, he forced himself to read through them because he knew Enjolras had read them. Grant even left the house and went to the library, stepping out of the darkness of his room and into the warm summer sunlight for the first time in days. He took out a handful of books on French history and read them on the lawn outside the library so he wouldn’t have to go home.

Grant had never liked history, he hated politics, and he laughed at philosophy. But it was the best way to distract himself when he was awake and, better yet, it was a way to feel close to Enjolras in a world where Enjolras didn’t exist. As the summer progressed, and Grant threw himself more fully into the world of Enjolras’s passions, he began to develop an appreciation for these fields in spite of himself.

Still, the days were hard to get through. Sometimes, while reading on the library lawn or sitting in his room, he would look up from a book and be unable to keep himself from thinking. He would think about how he was probably going crazy, or the way that his father and step-mother looked at him with disgust every time they saw him, or the knowledge that he was going back to school soon or anything else, and the world would transform. Everything became darker when he started to think. The sunlight on the library lawn became hidden behind a gray haze. His computer screen would dim and the letters grow impossible to read. At these times, Grant had to take a drink (or two or ten) to calm himself down, until the buzz of the alcohol overpowered his worry. Only then could he turn back to his reading and continue on as normal.

The beginning of the summer passed in this way. By day, he floundered. He tried to learn, but anxiety floated just out of reach, ready to attack and darken his world. He clung to a bottle and a book like safety nets.

By night, the sun seemed to come out.

*****

It was well past midnight, and the crowd in the back room of the Musain had begun to disperse. If it was well past midnight here, that usually meant it was approaching noon in the real world. So much the better. That meant he had slept through half the day.

Grant met up with Jehan, ready to walk home. He had just spent a large portion of the meeting arguing with Enjolras about the finer points of John Locke. He was becoming quite skilled at heckling, and the other Amis seemed to appreciate it and, occasionally, would join in (Courfeyrac and Bahorel were especially enthusiastic). It made the tone of the meetings much lighter and, Grant was happy to see, got them off track of trying to change the world. He preferred for these people to just enjoy themselves. The world was doomed no matter what they did, as far as he was concerned.

“Are you ready to head out?” Jehan asked with a smile.

“Certainly am.”

“Grantaire.” Grant could recognize the sound of Enjolras’s voice without turning around. His name on Enjolras’s tongue made his heart stop. “Can I talk to you for a minute?” Enjolras asked.

Grant’s pulse quickened, and he felt his palms grow sweaty. There was no way he could have a one on one conversation with Enjolras. “Um . . .” he looked at Jehan, trying to come up with an excuse about having to go home.

“I’ll wait outside,” Jehan said with a smile that seemed suspiciously big.

Grant was tempted to pull Jehan back as he practically skipped out of the café. Grant looked around the room to see if anyone else could come to his rescue. In an opposite corner Combeferre and Feuilly were chatting together, and Musichetta flitted between tables picking up empty bottles and wiping down spills. In their spot near the door, though, Enjolras and Grant were alone.

Grant forced himself to look Enjolras in the eye. The gaze was terrifying, not because Enjolras appeared angry—his expression was no more serious than usual—but because of the feelings it excited in Grant. When he looked Enjolras in the eye he couldn’t deny the butterflies in his stomach or the sense of swooning. On top of all this, he couldn’t crush the fear of rejection that Enjolras excited in him more than anyone else could. And Grant knew for certain that this conversation would include rejection in some way. Grant had finally become too annoying for Enjolras.

“I’m sorry,” Grant said.

“What?”

“I’ve, uh, I’ve gone too far in the shouting out during meetings, haven’t I? Or said the wrong thing or . . . I’m sorry.”

“Grantaire, I’m not upset with you.” 

“You’re not?”

Enjolras shook his head, confused. “No. Why do you always think I am?”

Grant shrugged and tried to make his smile casual. “Someone usually is,” he said.

“No, I just . . . I just wanted to talk to you about something else.”

“Oh. What?”

Enjolras looked down and bit his lip, seeming to collect his thoughts. “I . . . goodnight, Ferre, Feuilly . . . I’m concerned because it seems you believe in nothing. I want to how much of that is a joke and how much is serious.”

So Enjolras wanted to convert him into a believer. Grant floundered between relief and a new form of worry. Relief came because Enjolras didn’t consider Grant a lost cause; the new form of worry, because Grant already knew he was. He tried to shrug the statement off, wondering how to switch to another topic before these concerns came up. “I . . . I can’t be as hopeful as you. But I’m fine. I believe in some things, really.”

“What?”

“Uh . . .” He had to make something up, he knew. But when he looked at Enjolras—the intense gaze, the way the lanterns in the back room cast shadows across his cheeks and flickering light into his eyes—he had the sense that it would be very difficult to lie to him. “I . . .”

“Why do you come here if you don’t agree with our politics?” Enjolras continued. “What brings you here? How do you get from day to day without faith in anything larger?”

“You,” Grant said.

“What?”

Grant wanted to pluck that word out of the air and put it back in his mouth. He wasn’t even sure why he said it, or which question he was answering. “I mean I believe in you.” No, that made it worse. “I mean, uh, oh God. I mean . . . ok. You’re right. Most of the time, when I’m joking with you, I do believe what I’m saying. I don’t think the world is going to get better. I’m sorry.” He saw Enjolras starting to protest and hurried to speak before this could turn into an argument. “But there are good things in the world. And that’s why I keep coming back here. I guess.”

Enjolras stared at him. For the first time since the beginning of their conversation, Grant allowed himself to meet his eyes. They were confused and concerned. The firelight glinted and danced across them and made them burn blue. Grant’s breath caught in his chest. Musichetta had left some time ago, he realized, and he and Enjolras were completely alone. The room seemed to grow oppressively hot and small. Enjolras was too close. Enjolras wasn’t close enough. He could see Enjolras’s lips parted slightly and his chest move as he breathed and practically felt the warmth from his body and—

“Jehan’s waiting for me,” Grant said in a panic.

Enjolras started back. “Of course.”

“I, um, I need to . . .”

“Of course. Right.”

“I, uh, good talk.”      

“Yes. Definitely. I’ll uh . . . I left some things here--”

“Ok.”

“I’ll . . . I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Yes.”

“Goodnight.”

“Goodnight.”

When Grant escaped into the cool night, Jehan and Combeferre were leaning against the Musain, deep in conversation. Jehan perked up when he saw Grant.

“How did it go?” he asked.

“Oh, fine. Enjolras just, um, wanted to know about my political opinions.”

“And?”

“And that’s all. We just talked a little.”

“You just talked?”

“What else would we do?”

Jehan and Combeferre exchanged slightly disappointed expressions. “Oh, nothing. Let’s go home.”


	5. Chapter 5

Two weeks had passed since his conversation with Enjolras, and events at the Musain continued as normal. This evening, Marius had fallen in love and made the mistake of telling the Amis about it.

“I can’t believe this!” Grant shouted, relaxed by the bottle in his hand and the presence of his friends. “Monsieur Marius in love at least. I’ve never seen him oooh and aaah like this.”

“Can we focus, please?” Enjolras begged over the laughing din.

“You speak of battles to be won, but Marius is fighting the battle of love. He has come in here like Don Juan. It’s better than a mo--” No such things as movies yet. What did they have in this time period? “An opera!”

Marius ducked his head, his cheeks taking on a vibrant red color. Courfeyrac stood upon a chair to propose a toast to Marius and his upcoming wedding.

“Excuse me,” Enjolras shouted. “We’re trying to strive toward a higher goal.”

“A higher goal than love?” Jehan asked.

“Our highest goal,” Courfeyrac insisted, “Is to ensure that Marius’s lonely soul finds its match.”

“I don’t care--” Enjolras began.

“You don’t care about Marius’s lonely soul?” Courfeyrac asked with mock horror. The room erupted in laughter.

Enjolras threw up his hands in defeat as his friends continued to prod at Marius. Grant helped Bahorel and Jehan draw up plans for a wedding while the crowd jeered and shouted in their own (lewd) suggestions. Marius looked like he wanted to disappear.

As engrossed in the joking as he was, Grant couldn’t stop himself from turning to look at Enjolras periodically. After a few minutes of the wedding plans, Grant looked up and Enjolras was nowhere to be found.

While the others were distracted, Grant leaned over to where Combeferre was sitting and whispered, “Where’s Enjolras?”

Combeferre looked around in surprise. Quietly, so as to not draw any attention to himself, he left the back room. Grant followed. “I think he just wanted a minute in quiet. I’ll find him, don’t worry,” Combeferre told him. He left Grant in the main room of the café and went to check for Enjolras outside.

Grant scanned the main room. It seemed strange to him that someone would go outside to find quiet. The night was cool, and the Parisian streets weren’t exactly private. Tucked into the back corner of the main room, a staircase led to a second story. Checking to make sure Musichetta was distracted in serving a customer, Grant darted up the staircase.

He felt slightly nervous as he entered into a dark upper room. If he found Enjolras, he had no idea what he would say. If Enjolras really did want some quiet, wasn’t he going against his wishes by trying to find him? And, of course, if he didn’t find Enjolras, he was trespassing and that would be awkward to explain to Musichetta.

The upper room was mostly empty, with a couple tables dotted around the otherwise bare floor. Two other doors led into back rooms. One of the doors was slightly ajar, and a dim light flickered through the opening.

Grant crossed the room and peered around the door at Enjolras, sitting on the floor with a piece of paper in his hand.

Enjolras saw him approach and stood up in a panic, hastily stuffing the paper into his pocket. “What are you doing?” he demanded.

Grant froze, half of his face still hidden by the door. He saw in front of him a small, dingy closet filled with broken furniture and sacks of food. A candle had been brought up to the room and placed on a chair without a back. A wine bottle sat next to it. Enjolras seemed out of place in these dingy surroundings with a crumpled paper sticking out of his pocket.

“Grantaire. What do you want?” he asked again, a little more composed.

Grant pushed the door open a little way. He had a sense that he was looking at something forbidden. Enjolras had never appeared weak before. Enjolras was a marble statue, strong, perfect and unbreakable. Now cracks in the marble had shown through, and he felt as though Enjolras would have preferred for these cracks to stay hidden. Grant considered ducking out of the situation, but there was no graceful way to do so.

“Are . . . are you ok?” Grant asked, because he could think of nothing more eloquent to say.

“Of course. I’m fine,” Enjolras replied.

“Enjolras . . .” He was tempted to let it lie, but the presence of the bottle worried him too much. Enjolras never drank. “I can tell you’re not fine.”

Enjolras sighed and bit his lip. He seemed completely unsure of what to say.

“I’m just the drunk cynic,” Grant said, trying to put levity in his tone. “You’ve got nothing to lose by telling me anything.”

Enjolras gave a short, dry laugh. The look on Enjolras’s face physically hurt Grant with its sadness and vulnerability. Grant desperately wanted to cheer him up or hold him until he felt alright, but he knew he had no skill in making people feel better. He assumed that in order to do that, you had to know what better felt like.

“I just . . .” Enjolras shrugged and frowned, trying to get the words out right. “I received a letter today from my family. They’re disowning me.” He looked up and smiled wryly. “They don’t agree with my politics.”

Grant pushed the door open a little more until there was enough space to step into the closet. He didn’t know what to do, but Enjolras looked so beautifully sad that he felt he needed to try. “I’m sorry,” he said lamely.

Enjolras shrugged again, as if that made his problem smaller. “It’s just that . . . without their support, I won’t have anything to live on. It means I’ll have to get a job, I might have to give up on university and . . . and I don’t know . . . this group’s continuing no matter what. But if I have to work, the time that goes into organizing this . . .” He gave Grant the same wry smile. “My family said they’d take me back the minute I gave up on these politics. They’re blackmailing me to give up on my cause.” He shook his head. He wasn’t looking at Grant anymore, and Grant had the sense that he wasn’t fully talking to him. He was simply talking, and Grant was the one who happened to be willing to listen.

“That’s low, even for them,” Enjolras said. “I’m not giving in to them. Even if I have to starve on the streets, the revolution will progress. The people will rise, and those rich shits . . .” He stopped and took a breath to steady himself.

“My family sucks too,” Grant said. He wasn’t sure if it would help, but it was all he could think of to say.

“It’s not a big problem, considering,” Enjolras said, shrugging once again. “With all that’s wrong in the world, so many people are in worse situations. It’s selfish of me to concern myself with these little problems.”

“Not really,” Grant said.

Enjolras smiled and looked down. “Anyway. I’m sorry. I . . . please don’t tell anyone? Any of the Amis, I mean? I don’t want to trouble them.”

“Of course.”

“Thank you.” Enjolras sighed and leaned back against a stack of old furniture. He seemed to have calmed down. Grant was just about to offer to leave him alone when Enjolras started up and kicked the pile with so much sudden ferocity that Grant jumped. A broken chair clattered down to the floor, making a deafening noise.

Enjolras looked over his shoulder at Grant with an apologetic smile. “Sorry,” he said.

“That’s quite alright,” Grant said, not fully recovered from the shock of the amount of violence in Enjolras’s kick.

He leaned against the stack of furniture again, and this time he appeared drained. The kick had seemed to have taken all of his anger and frustration out of him and without it he almost appeared to shrink. Grant unconsciously took a step forward.

“It’s just that . . .” Enjolras began. He struggled to phrase it. “I feel like I’m fighting, planning, arguing, all the time. I recruit people to the group, publish pamphlets, speak to everyone I can, but it feels like no matter how loudly I yell, I will never be heard by those who need to hear. Sometimes . . . I feel like a stupid kid who doesn’t know what he’s doing. I don’t know if I’m the right person to lead this movement.”

“Well none of the other Amis are,” Grant said. “When I left they were dressing up Bossuet as a bride and forcing Marius to go through a fake wedding. Face of the future, right there.” Enjolras gave a weak smile. It was just enough of a smile to encourage Grant, and he continued in the hope of cheering Enjolras up. “Imagine if anyone other than you lead this movement. Jehan would go straight from politics to the spring wind and then write a poem about how they all connect . . .  which, of course, they don’t outside of Jehan’s mind. Courfeyrac couldn’t stay on topic for more than one minute. And Marius . . . just imagine Marius trying to lead people and then tell me that mental image isn’t hilarious.” Enjolras just barely laughed. “And then there’s me . . . any group I took charge of would run itself into the ground in five seconds flat. Showing up drunk to every meeting probably wouldn’t do much for a group’s morale, after all.”

Enjolras looked up at Grant. The laughter had disappeared, and there was a strange pleading look in his eyes.

“If anyone can lead a revolution, it’s you,” Grant said, more earnestly than he intended.

“But I thought you didn’t believe in revolutions,” Enjolras almost whispered.

“If anyone could convince me to believe in revolutions, it’d be you.”

Enjolras smiled again. “That’s the best thing I’ve heard all day,” he said. “Thank you.”

“Anything for my fearless leader.”

Enjolras picked up the candle and started the exit the closet, leaving the bottle behind. “You know,” he said over his shoulder, “You’re a lot less drunk than you usually act.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Grant asked.

“It means you are, on occasion, serious.”

“Nonsense. I can never be serious. I am wild.”

When Enjolras laughed, it was the most beautiful sound Grant could ever imagine.

*****

The next day, Grant sat on the library lawn, leaning back against a bench. Actually sitting in the bench wasn’t as comfortable, and he enjoyed the idiosyncrasy of sitting on the ground when a seat was so close. He flipped through a book of French history, reading up on the July Monarchy. From what had been discussed in the café, he had gathered that his dreams took place in the early years of that period.

The sun burned the back of his neck as he read. He let it. He hadn’t had a sunburn in years, and he was growing to like the almost oppressively warm feeling. Grant was beginning to understand why people enjoyed spending time in the sunshine.

He skimmed down a page and came to a section entitled “The June Rebellion.” This event he hadn’t read about before. He brushed a fly of the page and started reading it.

Midway through the first paragraph, Grant’s heart had stopped.

*****

“Jehan, what’s the date?” Grant whispered.

“What?”

“What’s the date?”

Enjolras shot a withering glance over to the corner where they were sitting, and they waited for his attention to be diverted.

“April 14,” Jehan said. “Why?”

“What’s the year?”

“The year?”

“Yes, I’ve forgotten the year.”

“1832. Are you alright?”

“Yeah I’m fine. I’ve lived through so many years, it’s hard to remember which one I’m currently in.”

Jehan raised his eyebrows and gave him a disbelieving look.

“Hey, is there going to be a rebellion soon?” Grant asked. “Like, we’re all talking about it. But do you, honestly, think that anything will happen.”

Jehan glanced up at Enjolras and nodded gravely. “There’s so much tension on the air recently,” Jehan said. “Something has to give. It’ll come, and before the year’s out I believe.”

Grant watched Enjolras speak. He looked so alive as he spoke of revolution. Snippets of words that Grant had read during the day flashed through his mind. He remembered how the author had called the June Rebellion a “grave failure” and how the rebels were outnumbered ten to one.

Grant watched Enjolras speak and became deathly afraid.


	6. Chapter 6

Just as the meeting started to wrap up, Grant could feel a pulling sensation that told him he was slowly starting to wake up.

“No,” Grant hissed. He clutched the edge of a table as if to anchor himself with it. There was no way he would let himself wake up now. Not after the realization he had just made, and the knowledge that a fatal uprising was on the horizon.

“No what?” Jehan asked.

“I . . . I need to talk to Enjolras,” Grant said. “You don’t have to wait for me.”

“Really?” Jehan grinned.

“Yeah. Why?”

“Have a good talk.” Jehan practically ran out of the room. On the way, he linked arms with Combeferre and whispered something in his ear. Were they . . . no, Grant wasn’t going to let himself think like that. They were definitely excited about something, but there was no way it was what Grant hoped they were excited about.

Grant waited until the crowd thinned. He told himself he was waiting for a better time, but really he was putting off this conversation for as long as possible. He knew he had to warn Enjolras about the rebellion, but he couldn’t think of how that attempt could possibly be successful. Enjolras would fight back fiercely, and Grant wasn’t sure he was physically capable of standing up to him. Still, he was less capable of saying nothing, knowing the danger Enjolras was in.

Eventually, Enjolras was the last person left in the room. Even Musichetta had finished cleaning up. Enjolras couldn’t help but see Grant in the corner downing the last dregs of a wine bottle.

“Grantaire?”

“Um . . .” He had almost hoped Enjolras would leave without noticing him. But, of course, then he wouldn’t be able to warn him about the revolution.

“What is it?” Enjolras asked.

“I wanted to talk to you.” Grant put the empty bottle down and stood up. He weaved his way between tables to reach Enjolras, and Enjolras did the same to reach him halfway across the room. “Are you . . .” Grant faltered. Even after all this time, and despite the personal conversation they had shared the night before, Enjolras threw him off-balance just by looking at him. Right now Enjolras was looking at him expectantly and questioningly, and Grant was irrationally afraid that anything he had to say would disappoint that expectance.

“Are you ok?” Grant finished lamely. “I mean, after last night?” It was exactly not what he had intended to say, but something had to come out of his mouth and it seemed the safest option. Grant wanted to smack himself. How would he get back to the revolution from this?

“Oh.” Enjolras looked surprised. “Yes. Yeah, I . . . Combeferre knows of a bookshop that needs help, and he’s working on getting me a job there. I should be fine. Thank you.”

“Good,” Grant said. “Because I . . .” What could he say? I care about you? That might give a little too much away. “I . . .” And then the words he had intended to say pushed themselves out of his mouth all at once. “Is there going to be an uprising soon? Like, within the next two months?” Grant blushed. The question sounded completely random, and he probably looked like an idiot.

Enjolras took it in stride though, probably because his favorite word, “uprising,” had been mentioned. “I believe so,” Enjolras said. “There’s talk of revolution on the air. The people are preparing for it, just waiting for the right moment. The whole city is primed to take back what’s theirs.” Talking about the revolution brought a light to Enjolras’s face that nothing else could. It was beautiful, and it was frightening.

“I don’t think you should,” Grant said quickly.

Enjolras’s face fell. The light was extinguished as if Grant had just snuffed out a candle. “Oh,” he said.

“It’s, you know, it’s dangerous . . .”

Enjolras actually turned his back to Grant. He began gathering up a stack of papers he had brought as references, sorting through them more carefully than he usually did after meetings. “I know you don’t believe in revolutions, Grantaire, but I’m not having this conversation with you.”

“No, it’s not like that,” Grant tried to protest. “I don’t care what you do for your causes. You want to work for something, great. Keep going. Just, violence might not be a good idea.”

“Oh, fine” Enjolras spat as he still refused to look at Grant. “I’ll overthrow the government with _pamphlets_.” His words were laced with as much venom as possible.

“Well it’s better than dying,” Grant spat back.

“I’m not going to die,” Enjolras said in frustration. “And if I do, I’ll be dying for freedom and my country.”      

“So? It’s a freedom you won’t be able to enjoy.”

“I’m not doing this for myself, I’m doing this for the people!”

“What people? Do you think the people will thank you? Do you think the people will mourn you? They don’t even know you. They don’t care about you.”

“It doesn’t matter if they have more freedoms.”

Grant tried to change tactics. “I understand that you’re frustrated, and that you feel like you’re not changing anything, and I’m sorry. I really am. But you can’t throw your life away for this.”

“I’m not throwing it away,” Enjolras spat back. “I’m spending it in the most valuable way I can.” Enjolras finally turned around to look at Grant. “Dying for my country is an honor and a privilege. If I am to die for freedom, then it is well worth it.”

“Not to me.”

“Well then I’m sorry for you,” Enjolras said, exasperated. “I’m sorry that you can’t believe in anything. You know, I’ve been trying to figure you out. I’ve been trying to understand what makes you so damn pessimistic, and I wish I could help you. I really, really do. But nothing seems to ever get through to you. So you can either join me, or leave me be.”

Grant felt the force of those words as though Enjolras had punched him. He stepped back, and Enjolras brushed past him to leave.

“I’m just trying to save your life,” Grant practically shouted. “I just . . .” Grant stopped to try to collect himself, but words tumbled out of his mouth unbidden. Words laced with anger, and frustration. Words that he knew he shouldn’t say and that he found himself incapable of not saying. “Okay, fine, want to know what makes me so damn pessimistic?”

Enjolras looked over his shoulder, waiting for Grant to continue.

“You know you could have just asked,” Grant said. He felt himself burning with rage. He was angrier than he had been in years, and it was all because this one boy didn’t understand how valuable his life was. Grant began speaking and didn’t even know where he was going, only that the anger was pushing these statements out of him..

“Here’s what makes me so fucking pessimistic. When I was a kid, my mom left. First blow.” He held up a finger to keep count. “A few years later, my younger sister was hit by a . . . run over by a carriage, asshole driver didn’t even stop. She died. Second blow.” A second finger. “Father got remarried. Two years of marriage and they already don’t like each other anymore. I’m pretty certain they’re cheating on each other. So much for love and faithfulness. Third blow. So, see, I was taught from a young age to not have much faith in humanity. Then, on top of all that shit, there’s the world. The whole fucking world that we live in. People starve to death every day while the rich just turn away and count their money and don’t give a fuck about anyone else. The whole world is falling apart and it has been falling apart since the beginning of history and you ask me to optimistic? You ask me to believe that one rebellion is going to change the course of a country’s history? People have tried that over and over again throughout history. It’s never worked.

“So, you see, every single thing I see in the world teaches me to stop hoping in anything. Except you. You . . . fuck.” Grant took a deep breath. He needed to stop and he couldn’t stop and he just knew he was going to regret everything he was saying tomorrow night, but the words kept coming. “You, and Les Amis, are literally the only good things in my life. And I don’t know if it’s because you’re so passionate or so hopeful or so fucking pretty, but when I’m near you I . . . when I’m here I start to think that maybe it isn’t all some fucking joke, and maybe there’s a point to this fucking miserable life after all, and maybe I can stay in this fucking miserable world, even if it just means coming back to see you every night. But if you die . . .”

Grant stopped. Finishing that sentence the way it was in his head was just too much truth to say out loud. “If you die,” he repeated in a softer voice, “all that goes away.”

Enjolras had listened to the whole tirade with his mouth open. Grant waited for him to leave, or disagree, or show his disgust. He did none of those things. Instead, he stepped forward and embraced Grant.

Grant gasped. He was shaking from the emotional force of everything he had said, and the hug made his heart race even more. Grant didn’t understand what was happening, but he fell into the embrace and buried his face into Enjolras’s shoulder. He let Enjolras hold him because he needed it, and he had wanted it for so long, and it calmed him to have his anchor in his arms. Grant breathed deeply and tried to let the shaking subside.

“I’m sorry,” Enjolras said. “I’m so sorry.”     

Grant stood up and tried to step away. Enjolras kept his hands on Grant’s arms, and Grand didn’t have the heart to pull away from them. “No, I’m sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have said all that to you. It . . . it’s not your problem. You’re worrying about the whole nation, you don’t have to worry about--”

He was silenced by the softest kiss he had ever felt as Enjolras tenderly brushed his lips across Grant’s. He let them linger for just a second before pulling away. “It’s fine,” Enjolras said quietly.

“What?”

“It’s fine.”

“No uh . . . the part before that.”

Enjolras blushed and stepped away, letting go of Grant’s arms. Grant couldn’t believe Enjolras was actually blushing. He couldn’t believe he actually didn’t know how long Grant had craved that.

“I . . .” Grant took a deep breath. He had felt way too many emotions tonight and he couldn’t let himself feel any more, but right now the softness of Enjolras’s lips was all he could think about that and he needed it again, desperately. “Can . . . can you repeat that part? I don’t think I quite caught it,” Grant said.

Enjolras looked up in surprise. A smile twitched around his mouth and it was so cute Grant needed to kiss that smile, but he let Enjolras initiate the kiss instead. He needed to be sure, absolutely sure, that Enjolras wanted this because Grant had never in his wildest dreams thought that was possible.

But, apparently, he did, because he gave him another soft, tender kiss and lingered for much longer this time, and when Grant parted his lips Enjolras pushed into his mouth deeper and damn did Enjolras taste good.

Enjolras pulled away. They were holding each other now. Somehow they had begun to embrace without consciously deciding to, their bodies pressed up against each other.

“I’ll walk you home,” Enjolras offered.

“Ok, good,” Grant said, barely hearing Enjolras’s words. He suddenly felt drained. More emotions than he usually let himself feel had come out that night, and none of them had been resolved. But he was holding Enjolras in his arms, and Enjolras was holding him, and he needed this. He needed this so badly because he needed the comfort, he needed the distraction, and he had always needed Enjolras from the moment he first laid eyes on him.  

This time Grant kissed Enjolras. They wouldn’t be going home for a while.   

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter's hella short but I hope other fun aspects of it make up for that fact :)


	7. Chapter 7

Grant woke up that morning with the taste of Enjolras still tingling on his lips. He let the real world come into focus reluctantly, preferring to hold on to the sensations of the dream. Languidly, Grant traced his fingers across his lips as though he could feel the imprint of Enjolras’s kiss still there. He couldn’t believe that Enjolras had actually kissed him, and the more he remembered the moment the more incredulous he grew. _Enjolras_ had kissed _him_. Willingly.

Grant thought back over the details of last night’s dream, and a warm, raw feeling spread low in his stomach. He remembered how Enjolras’s lips had brushed, pressed, sucked, each flick of Enjolras’s tongue along his lower lip and teeth, the way Enjolras had wrapped his hands around Grant’s waist and pulled him close so that their hips and thighs touched, separated only by a couple layers of unwelcome clothing. He remembered the way Enjolras had smelled and the feeling of Enjolras’s warm breath pushing its way into Grant’s lungs. Grant could spend the whole day remembering.

He stumbled out of bed. A quick glance at his digital clock told him it was a little pass noon. Without turning on the light, Grant grabbed a mostly clean t-shirt and pair of shorts out of his laundry pile. His skin felt electric. He didn’t know what he would do with himself all day. He certainly couldn’t envision himself concentrating on anything. Enjolras had kissed him. He got dressed mechanically. His mind couldn’t leave the kiss, and he didn’t really want it to.

He booted up his computer more out of habit than an intention to do anything on it. Maybe he would look up kissing. Because if that happened again tonight, he wanted to be ready. He hadn’t kissed anyone since high school and was deeply out of practice. While he waited for his computer to load the Internet, his eye fell across the stack of books he kept next to it. They were all history and philosophy books he had taken out for his Enjolras-inspired research. On the very top of the stack Grant saw the history book that covered the June Rebellion.

Grant’s excitement disappeared as though someone had flicked a switch, and a hollow feeling replaced it. He remembered the conversation that had led up to the kissing. It had not been the happiest conversation, and he was pretty sure he hadn’t accomplished his aim.

Grant stared at the history book as though it would give some answers. He needed to know how to keep Enjolras out of the revolution, but the history book didn’t have the answer he wanted (instead, it had all the answers he didn’t want) and in a burst of anger he picked it up and threw it across the room. It hit the opposite wall with a loud thud and left a dent in the drywall.

“God,” Grant whispered. He had met the love of his life, a love that he wasn’t sure was even real, and now he was going to lose him.

Enjolras had kissed him. And Enjolras was going to die.

*****

When Grant entered the back room of the Café Musain that night, his eyes first sought out Enjolras. Their gazes met, and Grant felt at once nervous and excited, miserable and sublimely happy. His breath caught in his throat. Enjolras gave him an slight smile, and Grant mirrored that expression.

He sat down in his usual corner and obtained his usual bottle. Enjolras, meanwhile, continued a conversation he was having with Courfeyrac and Feuilly. They both tried not to look at each other, but neither of them could keep their gazes diverted for long.

Jehan slid into an empty chair next to Grant. “Good evening, dear friend. How’d your talk with Enjolras go last night?”

“Oh.” Grant broke his gaze away from Enjolras. “It was good,” he said. “We . . . talked about politics.” It was only mostly a lie.

“Did you do any more than talk?”

Grant remembered the way Jehan had left arm with Combeferre the night before and narrowed his eyes in suspicion. “Jehan Prouvaire, what on earth do you mean?”

“I’m just asking an innocent question,” Jehan said with a grin that was anything but innocent.

“Because if you mean what I think you mean,” Grant continued, “and you never told me that you suspected that it was even possible, I’ll be very upset with you.”

“We wanted you guys to come together naturally. We didn’t want to say anything that would spook you into not talking to each other yourselves.”

“We?”

“Combeferre might have whispered some encouraging words into Enjolras’s ear.”

“Ah.”

“So this means there was more than just talking?”

“Oh my God, Jehan. Yes, there was more than just talking.”

“Excellent!” Jehan grinned from ear to ear

Grant sighed and shook his head. Jehan’s excitement was pure and joyful, and Grant wished he could fully share in it.

“Not excellent?” Jehan asked.

“Um . . . complicated,” Grant said.

“Complicated how?”

Grant shrugged. He couldn’t quite tell Jehan everything, and he tried to decide what he could say. “It happened after a really emotional conversation. I don’t think he actually likes me. I think he felt bad for me.”

“Grantaire,” Jehan started to admonish.

“I . . .” Grant gave up the fight. He knew he was unlovable, and he knew that Jehan’s knee-jerk reaction would be to comfort him and tell him he was lovable, which was not something he wanted to listen to. “And I feel like Enjolras is a dangerous man to love,” Grant continued. It was the closest he could come to describing his real worry.

“But of course Enjolras is a dangerous man to love,” Jehan said, speaking like the starry-eyed romantic he was. “But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t love him.”

Grant watched Enjolras from across the room. Every movement, every change of expression, stirred something warm in Grant. Enjolras looked up and met his eyes and they froze that way, staring across the café and through the oblivious crowd.

“Enjolras is your passion,” Jehan continued, “Just as the revolution is Enjolras’s passion. And one can avoid their passions no more than the earth can avoid encircling the sun. If you do not engage with him now, while you still have some of your wits about you, you’ll be driven half mad with not having him.”

Enjolras was certainly his passion, and Grant could feel this passion grow more overwhelming the longer he looked at him. A friend stole Enjolras’s attention, and the gaze was broken. Grant at once felt relieved and upset.

“You very well may get hurt,” Jehan said. “But then again, you very well may not. There is no way to know beforehand.”

Grant took a deep breath and tore his eyes away from Enjolras, looking down at his hands. He noticed for the first time just how rough, squat and ungraceful his hands were, the opposite of Enjolras’s delicate and smooth hands. There was no way Enjolras could ever love him.

“Grantaire,” Jehan said. “Talk to Enjolras.”

*****

The closet off the Musain’s upper room seemed like a haphazard room. Anything that did not fit anywhere else, from food to furniture and a handful of knickknacks in between (pots, empty bottles, tablecloths, ladles) had been put in this closet. It was random, messy, and ugly. Grant belonged here. Enjolras didn’t.

Yet Enjolras came anyway. Grant started in surprise when Enjolras walked in. He hadn’t actually expected Enjolras to notice he was missing, much less to come looking for him. Enjolras seemed a bit surprised as well, as if he didn’t expect to actually find Grant.  

After a beat of awkward silence, Enjolras spoke first. “Hello,” he said.

“Hi.”

“I . . . I was just . . .” He gestured to the little room. “I see you’ve found the same merits in this room as I have.”

“Oh, did you want to . . .” Grant also gestured to the room awkwardly, trying to communicate the idea of leaving Enjolras alone there.

“Oh, no, I came looking for you.”

“Oh.”

“Did . . . did you want to, you know, be alone?”

“No, no.”

“Good.”

They both stopped speaking. Enjolras bit his lower lip and looked around, as if looking for the right thing to say hidden in the mess that of the closet. Grant knew that he looked even more awkward and unsure than Enjolras did.

“Enjolras, I—“

“Grantaire—“

They had both begun speaking at the same time. Embarrassed, they both stopped.

“I’m sorry. You first,” Enjolras offered.

“I . . .” Grant couldn’t look at Enjolras when he spoke. It scared and thrilled him too much. “I need to know what happened last night,” he said finally, because he had a million things to say and that seemed like as good a place to start as any.

Enjolras took a deep breath, visibly uneasy. He stepped further into the room and closed the door behind him. They were alone and private, and Grant’s heart began racing. The room was lit by just a candle, and yet the light still illuminated Enjolras in just a way that was beautiful and breathtaking. His hair shone and the planes of his face were accented by oppositions of light and shadow. The thrill of his beauty and the danger of what he could say combined to make Grant felt as though the walls of this little room were closing in around him.

“I . . . I’ve been confused by you since you started coming,” Enjolras said. “I didn’t understand what you believed or why you were here or . . . but you interested me. You still interest me. I have the sense that there’s a whole world behind your snide remarks and your drunk interruptions. There’s intelligence there and . . . and something beautiful.” Grant couldn’t hear this. This was everything he ever wanted and everything he wanted to avoid. “You’re everything that I shouldn’t like, but I . . . Last night, when we kissed, it was real. It was, um, it was an emotional moment, but the kiss was real. I really wanted to kiss you. I have really wanted to kiss you.” The last sentence was spoken in an undertone, and he barely heard it.

Grant felt dizzy. He didn’t know what to feel, so it seemed like his heart was throwing every emotion it had at him.

“And what happened for you?” Enjolras asked quietly.

“Last night . . .” Grant almost laughed, he couldn’t believe this was happening. “Last night the guy I admire more than anyone else actually deigned to kiss me. And I don’t understand it.”

“What don’t you understand?” Enjolras asked. He seemed nervous, but that was impossible, because Enjolras didn’t get nervous, especially around Grant.  

“That . . . or how . . . Enjolras, I don’t know why I interest you or whatever. But I’m—I mean, I’m sure you saw some of this last night—I’m broken. And I don’t just mean I have flaws. I mean that I am shattered into a million jagged pieces. And most of these pieces are ugly, and all of them are sharp and deformed and . . . and if you stay with me for too long you’ll get cut. You’re right, there is a whole world behind my snide remarks. But it’s not a world you’re going to like.”

“I think I have the right to decide what I like for myself,” Enjolras said. “I’ll take that risk.”

Grant shook his head. “You always want to take risks,” he said. “But this isn’t a risk with a noble cause. This isn’t a revolution. This is just a lost drunk.”

“Grantaire I have seen beautiful things in you. Even if you haven’t seen them in yourself.”

“Like what?”

“Like . . . brilliant intelligence, and compassion, and . . . and hope.”

Grant actually laughed out loud. “ _You_ see hope in _me?_ ” he asked.

“What are you laughing at?” Enjolras asked, slightly frustrated. “Look, I know you don’t feel hope, but I guess, what I mean is . . . With all that’s happened to you, and all the pain I guess you’re always feeling, the fact that you still find some things to be good, or that you come to these meetings at all . . . or even that you still have so much compassion in your heart when it appears that not enough people have had compassion for you. I know you don’t feel hope, but you . . . carry some. In a way.”

“Enjolras I . . .” Grant shook his head. He couldn’t make sense of Enjolras’s words. Echoes of phrases bounced around his mind and made him dizzy. Everything was happening exactly how he had not expected it to, and exactly how a part of him deeply desired it to, and he didn’t know how to make sense of it. “Thank you. Hearing that from you . . . means something. But the plain fact is, I don’t deserve you. Please.”

“I’d like to decide for myself who deserves me, thank you,” Enjolras said. He took a step closer.

“Please, no.”

“Why not?”

“Because . . .” Enjolras was only a foot away from him. He was so close to touching Grant, and Grant wanted him to so badly that it pained him. “Because I’m afraid.” What he was afraid of, he couldn’t fully say. But those words slipped out anyway.

Enjolras lifted his right hand and cupped Grant’s cheek. In response, Grant let out a soft “oh” and closed his eyes. If he wanted to send Enjolras away, he needed to a do a much better job of hiding his pleasure at Enjolras’s touch. But Grant could barely think straight enough to realize that, let alone do so.

“I promise, I will try not to hurt you,” Enjolras said.

Grant took a shaky breath and tried to clear his thoughts. He knew that he needed to think of a way to get Enjolras away from him and that he never could. He wanted this too badly. Enjolras’s fingers against his cheek was enough to overwhelm him, and he could feel the heat from Enjolras’s body. As Enjolras’s lips bent down over his, Jehan’s words from earlier echoed in his mind. _One can avoid their passions no more than the earth can avoid encircling the sun._

Giving himself over to this truth, Grant rose up to meet Enjolras’s touch.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is pure fluff. Consider it the calm before the storm.

From that moment on, Grant’s life was consumed by Enjolras.

He knew that this relationship had an expiration date, and that date was fast approaching. But as time went on, that knowledge ceased to drive him away from Enjolras and, instead, only made him kiss harder. If this was going to end, he might as well enjoy it while it lasted.

Sometimes they would kiss in the upper closet before the official meeting started. They couldn’t do that every night without the rest of the Amis becoming suspicious (though Enjolras’s closest friends quickly became suspicious anyway, and they had no shortage of subtle jokes about the matter), so sometimes they would wait until everyone else had gone home for the night and make out on the tables in the Musain’s back room. The best nights were when they did both.

This went on for weeks, almost a month, and with every night Enjolras seemed to grow more beautiful. Grant preferred to just kiss and caress and enjoy this privilege of holding Enjolras, but Enjolras gradually wheedled in conversations. They would start simply enough—Enjolras would start by asking how his day was, or making a brief observation about something that had happened in the group, Grant would respond, and then they would be talking. More often than not, they talked about nothing. They talked about the other members of Les Amis, of being a student, of stupid childhood moments or silly opinions. Grant found he could make Enjolras laugh with stories of things he had done just to mess with other people, and he loved it. He loved the idea that he had created happiness in Enjolras. It made him feel valuable for the first time in years.

Certain topics were off-limits for conversation, and without talking about it they both seemed to agree which ones. They never talked about politics, about their family lives, about Grant’s drinking. Anything Grant had mentioned the few times when he had poured out his soul to Enjolras stayed quiet. The guiding rule, it seemed, was comfort. They comforted each other with their words, with their arms and with their lips. Whatever discomfort they had felt during the day dissipated when they saw each other at night.

During this time, Grant always woke up in the present day feeling energized. He went about his day with more enthusiasm by remembering how Enjolras had loved him the night before, and with more excitement by thinking of how Enjolras might love him in the night ahead.

They gradually grew to crave more and more time together. One night, as they were sitting on a table together in the back room, Musichetta rapped harshly on the door and shouted, “I’m locking up, and if you lovebirds don’t get out of there I’m locking you in.”

They pulled their lips apart reluctantly and looked into each other’s eyes. “I suppose we should go home,” Enjolras said.

“I wouldn’t mind being locked in here with you.”

Enjolras smiled. They almost kissed again but were startled out of it by Musichetta barging in to the room.

“I mean it,” she snapped. “Out. Now.”

Each smiling with embarrassment, they scurried out the café while Musichetta watched them with a mixture of exasperation and amusement.

They stepped out into the street. It was close to one in the morning, and the city was silent and breathless.

“Well,” Grant said with regret. “Goodnight.”

“You know, I live nearby, if you’d like to come back with me,” Enjolras said. “I mean, just so we can spend more time together.”

Grant widened his eyes in surprise, and the reaction made Enjolras blush. In his experience, he had been the only person to ever make Enjolras blush, and this was only the third time he had ever done so. It made him feel as though he had accomplished a major feat, and he loved it.

“I’m sorry, that’s not very appropriate,” Enjolras said, backtracking. “We should--”

His words were cut short as the skies opened up and it began to downpour with warning.  Grant shivered as the icy water soaked through his clothes in seconds.

“You say your place is closer?” Grant asked. “We’re going there. Lead the way.”  

Hunched against the rain, they ran through the twisting, narrow streets of Paris. They ran across patches of mud and splashed through puddles, Enjolras’s hand in Grant’s as he led him in the right direction. It felt like some ridiculous romantic comedy, and that realization made Grant begin to laugh. Enjolras seemed confused, but when he looked back at Grant he couldn’t help but join in.  

“This is it,” Enjolras shouted over the rush of the rain and he led Grant to his building.

“Wait, wait we can’t go in yet.” Grant pulled Enjolras back out onto the street.

“What? Why not?”

“We need to kiss in the rain.”

“What?”

“We need to kiss in the rain,” Grant insisted. If he was living out a romantic comedy, he was going all the way. “Everyone says it’s good. Come on.”

“Grantaire, we’re getting soaked,” Enjolras protested. But he let Grant yank his hand until they were facing each other and kiss him. The water slipped across their faces and between their lips, making the kiss wetter and softer. The air around them was icy cold, but wherever Enjolras touched him he became warm, and the contrast of Enjolras’s body and the cold rain made him shiver. Grant hugged Enjolras closer for the warmth and trailed his hand through Enjolras’s wet hair.

They separated. Grant rested his forehead on Enjolras’s. The air between their mouths misted as rain drops were heated by their breath.

“That was good,” Grant observed. “But I think it’s a little overrated.”

“Can we go inside now?” Enjolras asked, but his grin gave away his enjoyment.

A water droplet hung on the tip of Enjolras’s nose. Grant leaned forward and kissed it off before saying, “Alright.”

They hurried inside. Enjolras led him up to a back apartment on the second floor. It was small, but clean and neat. The front room held a table, two wood chairs and a couch that faced a fireplace. A bookcase sat next to the couch, modestly sized but stuffed to bursting. Another, smaller room could be seen through a doorway to the right. Through the open door, Grant saw a desk and a bed. The sight of the bed made his heart skip. Still a bit breathless, they took off their jackets and waistcoats, stripping off the wet outer layers in an attempt to dry off. Grant tried not to stare at Enjolras as he undressed down to his shirt.

“I’ll get you a blanket. I’m sorry I don’t have anything warm to drink,” Enjolras said.

“Not a problem,” Grant replied. He looked around the apartment while Enjolras rushed into his bedroom to pull two blankets out of a trunk. Enjolras wrapped a blanket around Grant himself before putting on his own.

“Feel free to have a seat and, um, I’ll get the fire going?” Enjolras spoke with the stilted awkwardness of a first time host.

Grant sat down on the couch and curled up in his blanket. “Sounds good,” he said. He watched as Enjolras squatted before the fireplace, holding the blanket safely out of the way with one arm as he poked the dying embers and added more wood to the fire. It was peaceful and sleepy, and Grant watched Enjolras’s movements with half closed lids and a lazy smile.

“There. That’s a bit warmer.” Enjolras said when he finished. He straightened up and turned to face Grant, seemingly unsure about what to do next.

“Well? Are you going to have a seat with me?” Grant asked.

Enjolras smiled, a bit relieved, and sat down. Grant didn’t waste any time in kissing him. The fire and the blanket helped to warm him, but his clothes were still wet and cold against his skin. Nothing took away that chill like the warmth of Enjolras’s lips. Grant wrapped one hand around the back of Enjolras’s neck, trailing his fingers through the damp strands of Enjolras’s hair, and rested the other hand against Enjolras’s side. He could feel Enjolras’s breathing through that hand, feel his stomach hitch with each little gasp at Grant’s kiss.

He had kissed Enjolras so often by this point that he knew how to please hie. Yet still, he was always surprised when he made Enjolras gasp, or whenever he heard that soft moan from the back of Enjolras’s throat that meant that he was pleased. Grant couldn’t believe he could do that to anyone.

But Enjolras was moaning now, while Grant flicked his tongue across his bottom lip before moving down to kiss Enjolras’s jaw, under his ear, down his neck. He left a trail of kisses marking off Enjolras as his. In response, Enjolras leaned his head back, eyes closed in pleasure,

Grant paused at his shirt collar and noticed that his leg had slid up Enjolras’s, so that their thighs were touching. Their blankets had opened, though they still hung across their shoulders. They were draped in such a way that they enveloped both of them in a warm cocoon.  Enjolras’s hands rested lightly on Grant’s sides, holding him gently. When Grant stopped, Enjolras leaned to the side to kiss Grant’s temple. His left hand slipped down to Grant’s waist.

“Why’d you stop?” Enjolras whispered. He kissed Grant’s hair, ear, cheek.

“I ran into a roadblock,” Grant replied. “I guess I’ll have to start working my way up again.”

In response, Enjolras reached up and undid the top button of his shirt. Grant watched Enjolras’s fingers, almost mesmerized, as they revealed the point where his throat met his collarbone, and just a bit of the smooth skin beyond.

“It’s getting cold and uncomfortable, anyway,” Enjolras said into Grant’s ear.

Grant didn’t need any more of an invitation. He pressed his lips down on the top of Enjolras’s collarbone and ran his tongue across the base of his throat. When Grant tentatively continued unbuttoning Enjolras’s shirt, Enjolras responded by wrapping his arms around Grant and digging his fingers into his back, pulling him closer. So Grant kept going, kissing every inch of skin he revealed. Enjolras leaned backwards, and Grant leaned forwards, until they were both lying down on the couch, Enjolras on his back and Grant on top. The situation made Grant dizzy, and he had never imagined that it would ever happen like this. He had never imagined that Enjolras would lie back and be passive while kissing, when he was so active everywhere else. But he was letting him do it and seemed to want him to do it, so Grant quickly stripped off Enjolras’s shirt. And of course Grant couldn’t have his shirt on while Enjolras didn’t; it was, after all, cold and wet against Enjolras’s skin, so they worked together to unbutton Grant’s clothes and toss them to the floor until both their chests were bare, skin against skin, warmth against warmth.

 Their chests, stomachs and hips lined up and pressed against each other, and Enjolras felt smooth and pure and warm under him. Their breath mingled together as Grant hovered just above Enjolras’s mouth and neck, unsure where to start. Enjolras ran his hand down Grant’s side, stopping at his hip, and Grant sighed at the touch.

“Shit,” Grant murmured. Not exactly the most eloquent thing to say, but with this god underneath him it was hard to speak properly.

Somehow Enjolras knew what he meant. “You’re beautiful, too,” he said.

Grant responded by dropping down to kiss him fiercely at the base of his neck, right above his left collarbone. Enjolras arched his back just slightly and dug his fingers into Grant’s hip, pulling him down. When Grant finally released, he tucked his head under Enjolras’s chin and let his eyes and fingers wander over the body in front of him. He ran the tips of his fingers across Enjolras’s chest, down his ribs and over his stomach. He reached the hem of Enjolras’s pants and stuck one finger underneath it, tracing the lines of Enjolras’s hips and belly. He wanted to memorize every inch of this skin. Enjolras seemed to be doing the same, running his left hand up and down Grant’s back gently and slowly, while his right hand stayed cupped against Grant’s left hip.

“I love you.” Grant spoke the words before he fully realized what he was saying. Once spoken, anxiety crept over him and paralyzed him. He couldn’t believe he had just ruined the moment by saying something so serious. Anxiously, he propped himself up on his right elbow to see how Enjolras would respond.

Enjolras looked bewildered, but he smiled. The smile grew slowly, as if from a realization. “I love you too,” he said.

“Really?”

Enjolras looked just as surprised as Grant felt, but he nodded, grinning. “Really.”

Grant sighed with relief and gave Enjolras a rewarding kiss. He tried not to dwell too deeply on what had just been said, but he could feel his heart speeding up. The room seemed to swim around him and grow hot—or maybe that heat was just the boy underneath him. He felt disoriented, electrified, and terrified all at once.

“Grantaire.” Enjolras reached up and cupped his face. “Are you ok? You look sad.”

He did look sad, Grant realized. He was no longer smiling. But in response he just shook his head, because he wasn’t quite sure what he was feeling.

All he said was, “Can I sleep here tonight?” because though he had no idea what he was feeling, but he knew he didn’t want to feel it away from Enjolras.

“Of course,” Enjolras replied.

Grant leaned down to kiss him again. 


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are some feelings here. There are also lame attempts to quote the musical. Enjoy.

As the dream world held a lot more appeal than the real world, Grant slept a lot these days.

His parents noticed and tried to badger him into waking up earlier. This, of course, just made him want to sleep more. He invested in sleeping pills so he could fall asleep quicker at night, and he began sleeping late into the afternoon. Time in his dream had a strange connection to time in real life. The dream always began in the evening, no matter when he went to bed, but the longer he slept the longer the dream lasted. If he slept until the middle of the day, his dream lasted until late into the night. Increasingly, he spent these late hours in Enjolras’s apartment. Since he didn’t need to sleep in this world—he was, after all, already sleeping—he stayed awake and watched Enjolras drift off beside him.

Some nights, they would stay up talking into the early hours of the morning. Grant usually let Enjolras do most of the talking, content to rest his head on his lover’s chest and hear the murmurs of his voice. Grant even allowed politics into these bedtime conversations as long as he didn’t have to agree.

“I suppose my education led me to become even more devoted to republicanism,” Enjolras mused late one night. In their conversations of the past few nights, Enjolras had begun to almost think out loud, speaking at length about whatever came to mind. Grant recognized that it allowed Enjolras to process whatever was on his mind, and he loved knowing that he could provide Enjolras with the service of a listening ear. “Reading all the great thinkers . . . learning political theory. When my family sent me to school, I don’t think that’s what they were expecting.”

Grant laughed softly in the back of his throat and placed a kiss on Enjolras’s chest, just above his shirt collar. They had been going to bed curled up against each other, arms around bodies, legs entangled. They hadn’t had sex yet—just the thought of touching Enjolras in that way made Grant nervous, and he could never imagine himself as worthy enough to do so—but Grant had trouble believing that anything could feel more sublime than lying with Enjolras like this.  

“What do you study at the university?” Enjolras asked suddenly. “You’ve never told me.”

“Oh, um,” Grant searched for a decent lie. He could have said philosophy, or politics, seeing as he had studied those topics recently. But it would be hard to convince Enjolras that he had chosen to study those subjects when he had such an apparent dislike of them. Grant chose the first lie that he knew he could prove. “Art.”

“What?” Enjolras propped himself up on his elbows. That meant that Grant, also, had to sit up a little as he was pushed off Enjolras’s chest. He didn’t’ appreciate it. “You’re an artist?” Enjolras asked incredulously.

“No need to act so surprised.” Grant leaned on his left elbow so he could face Enjolras.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that. I just had no idea.”

Grant shrugged. “I just didn’t think it was an interesting conversation topic.”

“Of course it is,” Enjolras said. “To have a talent like that is amazing. Do you paint?”

“Paint and sketch. And it’s not that amazing.”

“Some day I’ll try to draw something for you, and then you’ll see why I consider it amazing.”

Grant laughed and flopped down on his pillow. “I look forward to your masterpiece.”

Enjolras shifted onto his side so that he was leaning over Grant, his curls falling across his eyes in a way that begged Grant to brush them aside and kiss Enjolras. “Can I see your work?”

“Why is that always the first question non-artists ask of me?” Grant said.

Enjolras laughed. He gave Grant an apologetic kiss on the lips that made Grant grin a little more than he would have liked. After so many weeks of kissing, he had expected to be used to it by now. If anything it made him melt even more.

“But really,” Enjolras said. “I’d like to see what you do.”

“Mmm maybe.”

“If I’m making a masterpiece for you, I think it’s only fair.”

Grant smiled affectionately. “That’s true. I suppose it’s only fair for me to repay your masterpiece with a presentation of my modest works.”

“Good.” He bestowed another kiss. Grant closed his eyes and sucked in Enjolras’s breath as his lips pressed down and then pulled away slowly, teasing Grant with the prospect of more.

“Continue like that and I’ll give you a private exhibition,” Grant muttered. Enjolras smiled, and Grant closed his eyes again in expectation.

“Why art?” Enjolras asked.

“Huh?” Grant opened his eyes again, slightly disappointed. Enjolras had laid down on his side, arm pillowing his head.

“Why art?” Enjolras asked again.

Grant sighed and reluctantly replied, “It’s something I can actually do.”

Enjolras shifted closer so that his nose was almost touching Grant’s cheek. “Where did you learn to paint? What made you decide to pursue it?”

Grant kept his gaze on the ceiling. He did not like this topic of conversation. Besides the awkward necessity of translating everything into nineteenth century terms, a conversation centered around him and his life made him nervous.

“I, uh, I had a tutor when I was little who taught drawing. I guess I just latched on.” The truth was, his sister had wanted art classes when they were little, and his parents had thrown Grant into the class with her, despite his protests. It had ended up sticking. When his sister dropped the class, Grant insisted that he kept going. His father began putting sketchbooks and painting supplies in front of him when he didn’t know how else to entertain his young son. As the years went on, and he lost his mother and sister, art was the only refuge and outlet he had. Grant hadn’t been allowed to cry for most of his life, so he painted instead.

“Do you want to paint as a career?” Enjolras asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Do you have a favorite painter?”

Grant finally turned his head to look at Enjolras. “Why are you so interested?”

“Because I’m interested in you,” Enjolras said, as though it was obvious.

“Eh, I’m not that interesting.” Grant tried to lean forward for a kiss, but before he reached Enjolras’s lips they had started moving with another question.

“What are your goals? I mean, what do you want to do with your life?”

Grant paused with his face a couple inches from Enjolras’s and his lips awkwardly puckered. “What is this, interrogate Grantaire night?”

Enjolras just smiled in response. “Is that alright?”

“Not really.”

“It just seems to me that we spend every night together and yet I feel like there’s so much I still don’t know about you.”

“Perhaps there really isn’t that much to know.”

“Then why are you always so closed off?”

“Because . . .” And Grant sighed again. “Do you remember the conversation we had just before the second time we kissed? You said you thought there was a world inside me, and I told you it was a world you weren’t going to like.”

“And I told you I had a right to decide what I liked for myself.” Enjolras leaned on his elbow, too frustrated to continue lying down. “Look, if we . . . if we want this to be a long-term thing, and I do--”

“Please, don’t say this now,” Grant begged.

“Why not now?” Enjolras demanded.

In the dream world, it was May 31, 1832. If his fears came true, they had less than a week left.

“Please,” Grant begged again.

“Why not? I mean . . . God, Grantaire, I just want to know you. I’ve never had a relationship like this before, but I thought it was supposed to be about sharing yourself with someone, and I don’t think I can do that if you hide parts of yourself.”

“Please, don’t.” He couldn’t bear to hear Enjolras talking about their relationship, and the phrase “long-term” had stabbed him like a dagger and was still twisting in his heart.

“Why?”

“Wait until after . . . wait for another day.”

“After? After what?”

Grant didn’t answer, but he watched as Enjolras’s eyes widened in revelation. “After I fight a revolution? Is that what this is about?”

“I don’t want to talk about this.”

“Are you really still upset about the upcoming revolution?”

“No, Enjolras, I’ve completely come to terms with the idea of the man I love throwing himself in harm’s way for a fight he has no hope of winning,” Grant snapped. He rolled over on his back and dug his fingernails into the blanket in an effort to keep his anxiety at bay.

“There’s definitely hope! And . . . and I shouldn’t have to defend my cause to you.”

“Alright. Then don’t,” Grant said tersely.

“Executing this rebellion and furthering this cause, has been something I’ve dreamed of for years.”

“I thought you didn’t have to defend it to me,” Grant muttered. He could feel the anger from their first conversation about this returning, and it was only compounded by the proximity of the revolution. A part of him knew he was being selfish, and he didn’t care; he couldn’t live without Enjolras.

 “Doesn’t that mean anything to you? Haven’t you ever dreamed of anything?”

“No!” Grant snapped, though the interesting choice of words wasn’t lost on him. He turned back over to face Enjolras and leaned on his elbow, mirroring Enjolras’s position. “No, I haven’t. I’ve never had a goal. I’ve never had a cause. I’m sorry. I know you can’t understand that. But I’ve never found much reason to dream of anything. Because I know for certain that no matter what I do, no matter what I hope for or dream of, the world’s still going to suck, and my life is still going to suck. And that’s all there is to it.”

“But--”

Seeing Enjolras start to protest, Grant talked over him. He was suddenly desperate to say anything at all, as long it had the slightest chance of deterring Enjolras. “But you know what, Enjolras? Recently my life hasn’t been a pit of hell quite as often. Pretty recently, when I think about the future, I don’t see an endless string of empty days anymore. Now I guess I can say I have something to dream of.”

“What?”

“I dream of you!”

Grant almost shouted the words, accusing and blaming Enjolras with the words. At that moment, there was no one he loved more and no one he hated more than Enjolras. Grant turned away so that he was facing the wall, because right then he didn’t know if he could face Enjolras.

“I’m sorry,” Enjolras said. And then, after a beat of silence, he added quietly, “I was going to ask you to fight with me.”

Grant just laughed at that, a dry and mean and hurt laugh, because there was nothing more flattering and nothing more painful than being asked to fight beside Enjolras. He almost turned around to say apologize, to say he would love to die besides Enjolras. But he couldn’t, because he couldn’t stomach the thought of Enjolras dying at all.

So he stayed silent, and a moment later Enjolras laid down to sleep, facing the opposite direction. Grant woke up in his bedroom shortly after. It had been his first fight with Enjolras since they got together, and Grant felt sick to his stomach.

*****

The next day, General Lamarque died.

“His death is the hour of fate,” Enjolras declared when he heard the news. “On his funeral day we will honor his name with the light of our rebellion. On the tomb of Lamarque shall the barricade rise!”

His voice thundered through the café, and his blazing eyes made it impossible for anyone to turn away. Enjolras’s passion for revolution flowed out from him and filled the room, and the Amis were swept up in the current. Grant was the only one silent while the rest of the room broke out into cheers.

That night, when they met after the meeting, they didn’t talk about the revolution. They didn’t talk about their fight, either, except to murmur apologies to each other. Really, they didn’t talk about much of anything. Grant pulled Enjolras back to Enjolras’s apartment and, for the first and last time, they made love to each other. They both seemed to realize that there was no time to waste.


End file.
